


Disaster

by TurtleTotem



Series: Tumblr Ficlets [12]
Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Alternate Reality, Gen, Multiverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-01
Updated: 2017-04-01
Packaged: 2018-10-13 11:05:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10512489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TurtleTotem/pseuds/TurtleTotem
Summary: Disaster, literally "bad star." A reflection of the old idea that fate was written in the stars, inevitable, immutable.On tumblrhere.





	

Bad luck, that’s all it was. Bad luck that his body and the deflected bullet managed to occupy the same space at the same moment. There was no malice aforethought; no one intended it to happen.It was just… misadventure. Misfortune. Bad luck.

It wasn’t fair to hold it against Erik, he knew that even at the height of his bitter furious determination to do so anyway. Later years brought apologies, attempts at amends, telepathic proof of regret; the grudge proved impossible to hold. It was just bad luck.

But there was another word, Charles thought faintly, as he looked through the dizzying array of alternate realities the child showed him – frightened and bewildered by her own uncontrolled power, but he would help her with that. There was another word for misfortune. _Disaster_. Literally “bad star,” a reflection of the old idea that fate was written in the stars, inevitable, immutable.

Fifty-six alternate realities lay before him, each as real as his own, only taking place in some cosmic _elsewhere_. In some he walked, thanks to some variation on Hank’s serum, or other medical marvels. In the ones where he had left the beach unscathed (surprisingly few), there were other things – enemies who crushed his legs under tons of rock, another beach where an older, madder Erik threw a spear – there were even worlds where he lost his mobility as a child, as if in exchange for his manifesting powers.

In only two of the fifty-six had he never been paralyzed – the one where he died in a laboratory fire as a teenager, and one where, for complex reasons, his cynicism and rage at humanity outstripped even Erik’s, and the two of them briefly ruled a decimated Earth before being killed by a group of Charles’s students who still had consciences.

Disaster. Fate written in the stars. Charles's hands shook as he gently closed the array of universes, ushered the relieved child’s power away into a box they could unlock later, together. He made a mental note to give Erik a call.


End file.
